Southern Sportsman
Well-Known Member
Me and two buddies planned a first time hunt on some public land in Mississippi last weekend. Unfortunately my wife came down with the flu last Friday, so I stayed home over the weekend to take care of kids. My buddies found a few birds but didn't get one killed. Weather looked good on Wednesday, and since they knew where some birds were, it seemed a shame not to get any use out of the license I'd already bought. So I left my house at 2:30 and headed down. Quiet at daylight but I struck one about 9:15. Worked with him for a little over an hour. He was inside 80 yards most of that time and around 50 yards at the closest, gobbling and drumming like it was all he lived for. I had a good setup and I don't anything I would do different, but he skirted me just out of range and set up shop about 100 yards away to my 4 o'clock. There was enough cover that he might still come looking, but definitely not enough to move. I spit my call out and sat there quietly. He would either get curious and come looking or get bored and drift off and I would try to get back in front of him. He stood right there gobbling and drumming for another 30 minutes. Then I heard calling from the ridge behind him. Having been teased and all worked up for an hour and a half, he was anxious to explore new options. He quadruple gobbled at the first note, left his strutting spot, and marched up the ridge gobbling all the way to his death.
My buddies were hunting their way back to the truck and heard some of the earlier commotion. From their perspective, there was just a turkey gobbling his lungs out at the bottom of the ridge. They played it right. Set up and listened for a while. I wasn't calling, the turkey was gobbling, so they called just a little. I made it up the ridge for high fives before he even quit flopping. The guy that killed him is the guy that should have killed him. He went down last week to scout and found the birds in the first place. I didn't kill the turkey, but I got what I came for. That should hold me over until next weekend.
He was a 2 year old, but he put up a good fight.
My buddies were hunting their way back to the truck and heard some of the earlier commotion. From their perspective, there was just a turkey gobbling his lungs out at the bottom of the ridge. They played it right. Set up and listened for a while. I wasn't calling, the turkey was gobbling, so they called just a little. I made it up the ridge for high fives before he even quit flopping. The guy that killed him is the guy that should have killed him. He went down last week to scout and found the birds in the first place. I didn't kill the turkey, but I got what I came for. That should hold me over until next weekend.
He was a 2 year old, but he put up a good fight.
